Prime Hallowe’en Celebration

No fireworks, no loads of candies, no clubbing. It’s the kind of celebrating I like to do: pumpkin carving party! It took me a long time to finally decide on what to carve this year. The idea finally hit me an hour before the party started. Steve helped me find the image that I could work from. I didn’t have progress shots because my hands were too messy!

Meet the classic Optimus Prime. He actually looks kind of evil with the glowing eyes but he’s an Autobot! I had originally wanted to do my favourite Transformer, Bumblebee, but I couldn’t find a good image of his face. This pumpkin was THICK, so when I thought I was done, I realized I had to go back and redo some parts to make the surface cuts deeper because the light couldn’t shine through. Even after that, it took 2 candles to get the right effect.

Material: pumpkin
Tools: Paring knife, spoon (to scoop guts)
Time: 4 hours

Here is the result of our Hallowe’en celebration:

Mini pumpkins:
Mushroom (that guy was like a torch!) by Ting
Jack-o-lantern by Pearle
Painted Jack-o-lantern by May, attempted help from baby Ava

Big pumpkins:
Elmo by May
Bowser by Pearle
Optimus Prime by Ting

Boo!

I can’t remember the last time I decorated for Hallowe’en. The original idea was to have something “spewing” out of the mail slot, something like blood, but I couldn’t figure out a way to make it look real. So I gave up on that idea and moved on to wanting the mail slot to be some kind of mouth. And so the Nintendo part of my brain took over.

You can see in the first picture that the white cardboard (came from the box for my clock) didn’t really work, proportional wise. So I dug into my poster board supply for something bigger. If I’m going to do this, might as well do it right. All the coloured parts of Boo are cut from foam paper.

It’s quite a coincidence that Boo fits our living room colour scheme. Good thing, because we don’t think Boo can brave the elements outside so he’ll be hanging out on the inside of the door for Hallowe’en in the living room area. I like metal doors, the metal part makes mounting decorations clean and easy: magnets.

Materials: Poster paper, foam paper, commercial fridge magnets with double-sided tape
Time: 1:45

Birthday Buddy

I’m just so glad that there’s so much you can do with just paper and a knife! (and the occasional glue) Mainly because I would hate to start recycling designs with the amount of cards I make… Although I must say, it’s a lot easier to make cards for people I know, because I just transcend what they like (e.g. Mac lovers) into a card somehow. This one was a more generic card for my birthday buddy (literally – we have the same birthday) at work.

Material: Paper
Tools: X-acto knife, glue
Time: 0:45

Vinyl Thoughts

I always wanted a bathroom in a particular shade of blue with white trims/accents. Finally we get to colour our walls however we choose, so on went the blue. Once we were done, I was asked to think of a way to decorate our tiny bathroom, since I took over wall decor for the rest of the house. Floating in my mind was a picture of the roll of white vinyl that I got over 3 months ago and have yet to touch. I finally dug my knife into it.

It will be a continual work in progress. Currently there are 5 quotes in there, this was the only one that could fit in a close up shot. It does make going to the bathroom a bit more interesting. You’ll find you can’t help but to listen to what the wall has to say when you’re bound to the can =)

Material: vinyl
Tools: knife, transfer tape, ruler
Time: 10 minutes (cut and transfer “WHY NOT?”)

Green Latte

Continuing with the panel canvas art, next stop: kitchen. Many are familiar with the colour of our kitchen. It only makes sense to use that colour on some canvases for wall decor. Being the coffee lover that I am, this worked out perfectly.

The picture shows it drying on my black piano. It will be going onto a green wall in the kitchen once it dries completely.

Materials: canvases, latex paint
Time: 50 minutes

Card for Mitchelli

Finally, back to paper! My friend, Michele (with 1 l), had her birthday this week. I got her the 20 Questions toy where the toy tries to guess what you’re thinking of in 20 questions. The point was to make her feel younger than the age she’s turning. I thought a card might go well with it: a space for me to explain why the heck I got her a toy =)

Material: construction paper

Update: as requested by Syl, I’ll try to put this in from now on:

Time: 10 minutes

Wall Decor

It seems that I’ve deviated from the original theme of this blog: paper. However, the truth of the matter is I love all forms of art (well, most forms – had some bad art gallery experiences). When I was in grade school, every holiday break meant a new painting or a new poster for my room. Lately, all the painting I’ve done has been on walls, following ceiling edges and painter’s tape. As much fun as that was, I was awaiting the time when it came to use the extra paint to do something other than dip and roll.

Inspired by some canvas art I’ve seen, I ventured out to Dollar .25 Giant and got some canvases. I was hoping to get some big ones but these were the biggest they had (about letter size).

Hindsight, I probably should have just splashed the paint. Straight edges and curved corners deemed to be quite difficult. But wall decor for $3.75, not bad eh?

Materials: Latex paint, art canvases

Custom Utensil Organizer

My first project since the move! Our kitchen drawer for utensils measures 8.5″ wide. Fact: There are no utensil trays less than 9″ wide in Vancouver retail stores. The closest thing that I could find were those 3″ wide trays that you can piece together, but only 2 can fit into that drawer side-by-side which does not maximize the space efficiently.

The move resulted in the access to tons of cardboard boxes. So I taped and glued cardboard together, then covered it with kitchen drawer liner. It was a snug fit!

Materials: cardboard, drawer liner

Last-Minute Cards

This has happened on many occasions where we have to leave the house in 10 minutes to a party and I have to make a card. I suck at drawing, so I typically just take papers of different colours and try to glue something together that’s quick and passes as a decent card.

I managed to snap a quick shot of this card before we left the house just so I finally have something to post about! It was for our friend Ivy who’s headed off to Ottawa indefinitely and we wish her all the best!

I love strips of paper =) And I’m sure Steve loves getting his name attached to every card I make!

Materials: Paper, Sharpie

My New Desk!

Update: I ended up returning the desk… still searching for a new desk AND space for it actually…

Because I’m in the midst of packing, getting ready for the move in, oh, just over a month, I have decided to stop crafting just so I can start actually packing. It’s hard to pack when you’re still using everything. That may help explain why I haven’t made any new projects for a while.

On the brighter side, because my new house will be big enough to fit a desk, I get to make a purposeful purchase: a desk for myself! No more working on a glass coffee table, and I’ll actually get to sit in a chair while I work. I already knew exactly what kind of desk I would want. Basically, all glass top, I can just cut whatever I want. And what do you know? I actually managed to find one at a decent price.

They had a display at the store, and I took out my keys and attempted to scratch the glass, not one scratch can be made. Perfect. The wedge in between the 2 outer parts actually comes out so it’s in fact 2 desks. The keyboard tray actually works out really well as a paper disposal when I’m cutting. I had imagined a trough of some kind that I could pull out, swipe all the little bits of paper into it and it’s a clean surface again while I’m cutting. This is close enough! I’m picking it up tomorrow, will have to wait ’til after I move to actually assemble it but I can’t wait!